Emmanuelle Schick Garcia was born in the south of France to a Spanish mother and a Canadian father. At the age of three her family moved to Vancouver, Canada where she grew up. Her father, Doug Schick, was a professional rugby player who represented Canada in international competitions.[1]

Emmanuelle was a Spanish Junior Swim Champion.[2] She was a world ranked swimmer at the age of fifteen and represented Spain at the 8 Nations Cup (1992) in Sweden and the European Junior Swimming Championships (1992) in England. She competed in the finals at the 1992, 1996 and 2000 Spanish Olympic Trials for CN Ferca (Valencia), Real Canoe NC (Madrid) and Club Natacio Sabadell (Catalunya). In 1996, she was the Spanish Vice-Champion in the 200 IM and the bronze medalist in the 100 butterfly at the 1998 Spanish National Championships.

At sixteen, Schick Garcia directed a play that was presented at Vancouver's Theatre Festival. At eighteen, she earned a swimming scholarship to University of California, Los Angeles where she received a B.A. in Art History. During her time at UCLA she was also a student-athlete activist[3] and a journalist for the Daily Bruin.

She was awarded "Outstanding UCLA Swimming Freshman" in 1996 and the UCLA swim team "Bruin Pride" award in 1998 and 1999.[4] She was ranked sixth all-time in the 200 IM and eighth in the 400 IM on UCLA's all time best times in 1996,[5] and was the swim team co-captain in 1999.[6] She was the swimmer featured in the 2000 TAG Heuer link watch advertisements which appeared in Vogue Magazine, Harper's Bazaar, Elle Magazine, among others.

Her films Cancer and A Safe Place were screened as official selections at Les Films du Monde, Montreal. She directed the 'making of' Richard Bohringer's C'est Beau Une Ville La Nuit, and 20 Ans Déjà with French rugby star Denis Charvet.[9] In 2009 she wrote, directed and coproduced (with Laila Tahhar) the feature length documentary The Idiot Cycle which won the 2010 Green Report Award. She directed the music video El Lado Salvaje[10] for the Chilean band Wentru that appeared on MTV Latin America.

She appears as "Françoise" in Juliana Hatfield's memoir "When I Grow Up". She was a member of the Canadian experimental band Japanese Pop Songs who were named one of Vancouver's best unsigned bands in 2007.[11][12]